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originally posted by: 111DPKING111
a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed
If they are ahead of us a million years, maybe we did receive their signals, but at some point they switched to another technology before we started listening. No more signals.
If they are ahead of us a million years, maybe we did receive their signals, but at some point they switched to another technology before we started listening. No more signals.
originally posted by: Cofactor
a reply to: 111DPKING111
If they are ahead of us a million years, maybe we did receive their signals, but at some point they switched to another technology before we started listening. No more signals.
It remind me of the problem with SETI like initiatives to detect intelligent life activity in the cosmos by listening to radio signal. I will give us, human as an example. We began to use radio transmission in the early 20th century but not until mid-1920s, that amplifying vacuum tubes allowed practical and powerfull radio transmissions.
From that time, radio transmissions were mostly analogic, exhibiting strong and discrete powerfull spectral peaks that can be easily detected against noise and qualified as being not natural. But still if we orient an antenna toward earth, we will get thousands upon thousands of these signals one over the other and it will mostly look like noise. Imagine this a couples light year away and drowned in the radio noise the sun emit.
Now come the 21th century and all radio transmissions are being converted to numeric with a spectral enveloppe designed to minimize discrete spectral peaks and compressed to get maximal spectrum efficiency. These numeric transmissions, even when near and strong simply look like noise. Look at them using a spectrum analyser if you don't believe me.
There is no chance these signals could be detected vs noise couples light years away. So my point is for human civilisation, the radio detection window, if such thing is possible, only existed for a mere ~80 years!!! We are not talking million years here.